May the Lord grant to us humility
and love to things that are contrary to our nature and yet were so evident in Christ
as he walked in the world. There never been a man who walked
in more humility before men than Jesus Christ. I mean the ruler
of all things and yet submitting himself first unto his parents
as a child and growing up under their direction. And then as he walked among men
doing good and never speaking ill of men in a spiteful way. You know, there's such a contrast
that we see in him as what we see in ourselves. And yet he
came into the world for our sake to teach us what that humility
and love is by giving us, first of all, his example. And then,
most importantly, as he died for us, had demonstrated that
and sent his spirit into the world to be our teacher and to
lead us and to guide us and to work in us to will and to do
of his good pleasure. And so it is that we pray that
the Lord would give us such humility and love as is becoming the children
of God. That is that which is fitting
for them. That which as they go through
the world, they are known by these things. These are the things
that God's people should be known by. You know, we want to be known
by what great deeds we've done. Maybe some great work of charity
or whatever. or by our knowledge. Some men
delight greatly in their knowledge and what they know and how they
can tell other people what the truth is and all of these things.
But that which the Lord has called us to It's not that which the
world has much value in. Now, the world talks a lot about
love. It's a pretty common word to
be used. I mean, you won't go through
a day without hearing people talk about love of one kind or
other. You'll find people that say they
love everybody and they love you and all this kind of stuff. But true love, is described for
us in the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, and it's quite different. for
the most part, for what we like to think of ourselves as being
loving people. I mean, we like to think of ourselves
that way, don't we? I mean, you know, we're loving
people. And in a measure, we are. I mean, compared to other
men, they're definitely, you know, those who name the name
of Christ, comparatively, I would say, as a group, they do exhibit
love. But it's when we read about what
true love is and we see Christ demonstrate that love, it is
then that we realize we don't know one thing about what love
is. The Lord said to love the Lord
our God with all of our heart, and some people think they do,
and their neighbor as their self, and some people think they do
that. But I venture to say to you, those that think they do
are the furthest from that. Because when a man is confronted
with those things, as the Lord told the rich young ruler, he
said, you know what the commandments are. And he went away sorrowful, why?
I believe he went away sorrowful when the Lord confronted him
with, he said, go and sell all that you have and give to the
poor. And he realized, well, wait a minute. Maybe I don't
love my neighbor as myself. Maybe I don't love the Lord,
my God, with all my heart. And he went away sorrowing. I
don't know if the Lord might have used that sorrow as a godly
repentance to bring him back. He may have. A lot of people
mostly think that he went away sorrowing because he had the
money and he didn't want to give it up. I'm not so sure of that
as you look at it. Because in one of the passages
it says the Lord looking on him loved him. He loved him. And he told him those things
because he loved him. And he humbled his heart because
he loved him. Because you see, that's the way
the Lord works, is he works in his people to humble them. Remember
what he did with Job. I mean, Job was a man greatly
favored of God, was he not? Job had great wisdom, and Job
was a man who expressed that wisdom. that wherein he had. But when the Lord confronted
him at the end of the book, he humbled him. Because Job realized
he didn't know anything. He thought he did. And compared
to those men that came to comfort him and help him, he basically
was right in most of what he said, whereas they were self-righteous
mostly in what they did. But even Job was humbled before
God. It's a great privilege. Think
about the apostle Paul, Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus.
I mean, here was a man who was a Pharisee of the Pharisees.
He was sent on a special, was a special envoy with letters
from the Sanhedrin. to persecute those that were
following this man, Jesus. And yet the Lord humbled him
on that road because he loved him. And he was persecuted much
throughout his life because the Lord loved him. Because he said,
this thorn in the flesh, we don't know what that was. Maybe it
was the thorn of his flesh, I don't know. But whatever it was, he
said, the Lord gave this thing to me that I might realize that
his grace is sufficient. Because you see, that is the
essence of true humility. When we live our life with that
understanding, day by day, moment by moment, in those interactions
that we have with one another, his grace is sufficient. We're looking in 1 Peter, the first chapter. We'll begin reading there in
verse 17. And if you call on the Father,
who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's
work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear. For as much as
ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver
and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your
fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb
without blemish and without spot, who verily was foreordained That
word is the same as predestined, who was foreordained from before
the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last
times for you. who by him do believe in God
that raised him up from the dead and gave him glory, that your
faith and hope might be in God. Seeing ye have purified your
souls and obeying the truth through the spirit unto unfeigned love
of the brethren, see that ye love one another with pure heart
fervently, being born again, not of corruptible seed, but
of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth
forever. For all flesh is as grass, and
all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth,
and the flower thereof falleth away. But the word of the Lord
endureth forever, and this is the word which by the gospel
is preached unto you. That one thing that we must never
forget is that we were redeemed with
the blood of Christ. See, that's the message of the
gospel. Now, it's a message of good news
to the saints of God as they are brought out of the darkness
and into the light to realize what it is that Christ has done
for them. But it is also that daily reminder
that we're given as we go through the word of God is not something
that just happened in the past. Now a lot of people as they consider
what Christ did they think of it as a thing that was done back
there. He did it and of course most
of them will tell you well he just did it in a blanket way
for all men and he's just waiting to see who will come along and
say they believe it and then he'll start blessing them because
of what they've done. He has given us the gospel, and
he's given us the faith to believe it, that we might be blessed,
surely, in the recognition of what he has done, but that what
he has done is that which he has used as an impetus to give us
a desire to follow him. Not just he did that for us,
but that he did that for us so that we might see what he did
for us. And knowing that it is not by
the blood of bulls and goats, but by his own blood, he obtained
eternal redemption for us. Then it is by that, and with
that awareness, that we order our lives by the grace of God. Now, even as the supper that
he gives us, He said, as often as you do this, do it in remembrance
of me. Remembering what? Remember his
death until he comes again. Now it's not a, that's not a
bad thing to remember the death of Christ. It should be on our
mind every day. Christ died for us. He redeemed
us with his blood. And you know, some people, when
they think of the blood, it's just like a kind of a rote thing.
We're cleansed by the blood, by the blood, by the blood. Well,
what does that mean? Well, it means two things. One
is that Christ offered a sacrifice for sin. The Lord said, without
the shedding of blood, there is no remission. And it is the
blood of Christ alone that could accomplish that task. But the
blood, the scripture says that the life is in the blood. No
being, no life can be sustained without the blood. Now I don't
know about the microbes and all of that stuff, but I know this,
if you put them out in the sun, or you subject them to great
heat and it dries up, the moisture or the blood that's in them.
I don't know if you call it blood or not, but the life is in the
blood. In other words, the Lord is that
who gives that. And so we see that in Christ,
he has given his life for us. It's not just simply he shed
his blood. I mean, he could have pricked
his finger and shed his blood. That's not the thing. It's not
the blood per se. It's not the fluid. You know,
some people think it's almost like it's that fluid. No, it's
what that fluid is. It's the life. It was the life
of Christ that was poured out so men could see it. See, men
know that if you lose your blood, you're gonna die. I mean, they
have no doubt about it. And so it is that Christ was
slain for us as a Lamb of God without blemish and without spot,
remember. that he was sinless and he died
for sinners. You know, some people are proud
of being sinners. Some people are proud of being
humble. You know, that's kind of a contradiction
of terms, isn't it? But that's the way it is, you
know, because some people boast in it. But our boast is in Christ. We don't have any boast. What
can we boast of? Can I boast because I know more
scripture than you do? Who gave me the brain to be able
to read? Who taught me to read? How did
I learn to read? You ever thought about that?
How does a person learn to do anything? How do we learn to
speak? How do we learn to Do tasks. How is it that we can
do that? If somebody gives you a hammer,
and you put the hammer in your hand, and they tell you, well,
you know, if you hit this, it'll go down. Well, why does it do
that? Is that just a work of nature? Did it just so happen
that if a man had a nail and he had a hammer, he could build
something? How did he do that? It's all
the grace of God. Everything that we have, in him
we live and move and have our being. We have nothing that we
have not received, even down to the very minutest of details
in our life. And he has purchased us. He verily was foreordained from
before the foundation of the world. Predestined, determined,
it was set out. Now we know that all things are
determined by God without any input from us. I'm glad that it is. I mean, what if we lived in a what-if
world? Now a lot of people live in a what-if world every day
and they worry about everything that comes along. We don't live
in a what-if world. We live in a world that the Lord
God Almighty is in control of. And the one thing that's most
important to us, as we see set forth here in the scripture,
who verily was predestined before the foundation of the world for
us. He was marked out as the savior
of his people. This isn't something that just
happened. It wasn't a secondary plan of God. It wasn't a method
God used to solve a problem that was caused by men. He ordained
the Savior. As someone has said, before there
was ever a sinner, there was a Savior. He was foreordained. Before the foundation of the
world. But here's the glorious thing. He was manifest in these
last times for you. See, what if he had been foreordained
to be the Savior, but we never knew it? See, that's what the gospel is.
It brings life and immortality to light. Our eyes are opened
by the Spirit of God to behold the glories that he is pleased
to reveal to us in the gospel. And so it's manifest to us. He's shown it to us. Now that's
the glorious thing. See, each time that we take the
Lord's Supper, the Scriptures, we do show the Lord's death till
he comes again. It's the same word. We do manifest
it. It's set out there. It's like
he has manifested himself for us in time, and we manifest that
we believe these things in time as well. manifest in these last times.
Now we talk about that. I think it's an important thing
to talk about the last time. What is the last time? This is
the last time. This is the day of salvation.
This is the day in which Jesus Christ came into the world. It's
the age in which he has come. There's not coming another one.
You know, there's not gonna be another opportunity, as men say. This is it. This is the day of
salvation. These last times. And look at
what he said, who he was manifested for. For you. For the people
of God. See, that's what Peter's been
talking about, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers
scattered throughout the earth, the sojourners. Those that don't
believe this world is their home. He says, for you, Jesus Christ
came into the world as a predestined Savior who was manifest, shown
in these last days for you. The Lord said, I know my sheep. He said, I call my sheep and
they hear my voice. and they follow me. That's who
it is talking about. That's the ones that's you. That's
the you there for the ones that's for. Who did Christ die for? He died for his people. He died
for his sheep. He died for those for whom he
was predestined to be a savior. I mean, would it make any sense
if he was predestined to be a savior and then never saved anybody?
I mean, that wouldn't make any sense at all, would it? And yet,
it is a predominant teaching in our day that Jesus Christ
died for multitudes who will not be saved. Now, dear brethren, I believe
that's a travesty. That's a bold-faced lie. It cannot
be the truth. Because if Jesus Christ is a
predestined Savior, then he must, of necessity, have a people who
were predestined to be saved by that which the Savior, who
was predestined to come, brought to pass. Now that's a glorious
thing, and you don't have to understand all the intricacies
of that in order to believe it. The Lord said it, whether anybody
likes it or whether anybody believes it or not, doesn't make any difference,
it's the truth. That's what the scripture says,
plainly. Manifest in these last times
for you, for the ones that He died for, for the ones that He
was the Savior of. Who by Him, now these are the
same ones, See, some people talk about predestination, like I
know there is a group of people that believe in predestination,
and they believe in the elect of God, but what they don't believe
in, in the fact that they are predestined to believe, they
just believe they're just elect, and one day they'll wake up in
heaven because they're elect, and they never knew Christ or
anything in the world. Now that's ridiculous, that's
not what the scripture says. The Lord was manifest for us
because they are not only predestined, that Savior's not only predestined
to save them, but by the same predestinating power that ordained
Him unto that Saviorhood, they are ordained to believe. That's what it says, who by Him. By who? By Him that was manifest. Who? By Him. It didn't say who
in Him. Now they do believe in Him, but
they believe by Him. You see, faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the Word of God. Christ is the Word. Man can't
believe without Christ. He can't believe Christ without
Christ. See, the gospel's preached widely
in the earth, but everybody doesn't believe it, why? Because they're
not given the word. Who by him do believe in God. We believe in God, do we? Now,
it doesn't just mean we believe in God as a creator. We do believe that he's the creator.
But we believe in God. In other words, we believe in
the God who predestined the Savior. This one, the one who gave His
life, that's the God in whom we believe. We believe Him. We believe in God that raised
Him from the dead. Who? Jesus Christ. We believe
that He raised Him from the dead. How was He raised from the dead?
How did He even die? I mean, he's the eternal God
who came to be born in the womb of the Virgin Mary and became
flesh and blood and walked among us. And who can explain that? And if we think that's an amazing
thing that can't be explained, how can it be that he who created
all things went to the cross and died? Now there's plenty
of people that's got all kinds of explanations, but after you
read the explanations and you get through with all that, and
you sit down and you say, how can it be? Because it doesn't
make a difference how many times men might explain it, it is unexplainable. It is beyond the scope of man's
comprehension, and so it's out of the realm of the natural thought
process, and it comes down to that we believe. By faith, you
see, we believe that God created the world out of nothing. And
you can't teach a man that. You can tell him, but you can't
make him believe it. Only the Lord can teach a man
and give a man true faith. Who by him do believe in God
that raised him up from the dead and gave him glory. See, these
are the things that we rejoice in, is it not? that Jesus Christ
came into the world as the Savior of sinners, that He died on Calvary's
cross as that Lamb of God slain, and that the Lord raised Him
up from the dead, and not only raised Him up from the dead,
but gave Him glory, so that all things in heaven and earth redound
unto that name which is above every name, And at the name of
Jesus, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess. What
does that tell me? It tells me that He is the central
point of the glory of all things. And the scripture plainly says
it. It says He's the first and the last. He's the Alpha and
the Omega. He's the faithful and the true.
He's the Savior. A glorious and righteous Savior. And gave Him glory. See, we believe
in the glory of Christ. We don't believe in the glory
of men. There's nothing in men that we can commend. Now, compared
to one another, we might pat somebody on the back and say,
you did a good job. But compared to perfection, we
don't any ever do a good job, do we? Because nothing you've
ever touched has been perfect. When you go buy a new car, You know, it's such a wonderful
thing. And you won't have that car a week until you look at
something and you say, well, look at that. I'm gonna take
this thing back to the dealer. And you get it back to the dealer
and they correct that problem and you're driving along. Well,
look at that. Because everything that men touch,
is tainted in some way. And that's because of the sin
that dwells in us. It's just the nature of us. It's
what we are, dear brethren. It's everything we touch. But
he gave him glory that our faith and hope might be in God. Because
see, it's the manifestation of Christ to us that causes us to
believe. See, it's only as the Lord reveals
himself that they believe. Remember those two men on the
road to Emmaus, and the Lord came up with them, and he's going
along talking, and they're saying, you know, we had thought that
this one, this man Jesus was the one that would, delivers from oppression, and
now, He's been crucified, and some of them said he rose from
the dead, but you know, you can't believe stuff like that. I mean,
who would ever believe such a preposterous tale as that? And he's walking
along right with them. And then he opened up to them
the scriptures. And when he departed, they say,
did not our heart burn within us? Why? Because he revealed
himself unto them. Now he didn't show himself to
them at the beginning, why it says their eyes were holding.
I don't know exactly what that means, but I mean it just means
they couldn't tell who he was. He didn't, now you know I've
had, you hear men say, oh well he must have had a cloak around
his face and all that. I don't believe that. He was
walking around with them and he looked just like he always
looked. But they didn't know who he was. They didn't figure,
they might have thought in their mind, you know this guy looks
just like Like Jesus of Nazareth, who we've been with, but nah,
it couldn't possibly be him. But you see, when the Lord is
pleased to reveal himself, he doesn't even have to be present
because he was gone when they realized who he was. Oh, what
a glorious God he is. That your faith and hope might
be in God. You see, not in yourself, but
in him. Seeing that ye have purified
your souls and obeying the truth of the Spirit unto unfeigned
love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure
heart fervently. Now, how many of y'all have purified
your souls? Now, you have to understand that
what the scripture, when Peter's speaking here, he's speaking
of something that has taken place. He's not speaking about something
that men are doing. but he's speaking about something
that has taken place. He says, seeing that ye have
purified your souls and obeying the truth and spirit unto unfeigned
love of the brethren, see that this work has been done in you,
seeing that it has been performed in you, seeing that that is so,
then see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently.
See, we didn't decide to do that. Well, I think I'm gonna start
loving the brethren. No, the Spirit of God came upon us. And
now we're exhorted to love one another. See, we love one another. I mean, that's the work of God
in us, doesn't that what John said? By this we know that we're
his disciples because we have love one to the other. And so
we wouldn't come along and say, well, don't love one another.
No, we would exhort one another to love one another. Why? Because
we've been caused to love one another. See, that's the work
of the Spirit. That's how the Spirit works in
us. He works in us both willing to do of His good pleasure, but
He works in us having worked in us. He doesn't just take somebody
over here and works in them without any work prior to that. He works in them as He works
in us. Seeing that ye have purified
your souls. How'd we do that? We didn't do
it by our effort, but it's been done for us, in us, by the Spirit
of God. See that ye love one another
with pure heart fervently. If you are the children of God,
then love one another. Being born again, not of corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible again. He's not saying this as an activity,
but he's pointing out an activity that has taken place upon them. We might say it like having been
born again. Being born again. You're born
again. He's not saying you need to go
out and be born again. He's not saying that some activity
that you're gonna do is you're gonna be born again. You're not
gonna be born again by anything you do. But having been born
again by the Spirit of God, by the Word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever, what is that Word? I mean, it's not this... I've heard men talk about, you
know, you're going to be born again as you read the Word of
God. No. This is not the living word
of God. I mean, it is a powerful word,
but it's only powerful because the Spirit of God takes it and
applies it to the heart of a man. But you see, we're born again
by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. That word
is that eternal word. And it's by the word of God that
we're born again, only by the power of Almighty God. So being
born again, by of corruptible seed love one another. He said
that's the outgrowth of this. He said that's the work of God
because it is so. And here's the contrast. He said
you're born again by the word of God which liveth and abideth
forever for all flesh is grass. That's what the Lord told Nicodemus.
He said Nicodemus, except man be born of water and of the spirit,
He cannot be in the Kingdom of Heaven. Man must be born of water. Now, a lot of people try to make
that into water baptism. There's denominations that teach
that you've got to be born of water, you've got to be baptized
in order for your sins to be taken away. In order for you
to be born again. They say you're born again when
you're baptized. That has nothing to do with that.
The Lord's making the contrast between the natural birth, which
is a water birth, that is born of water. You ever heard of a
pregnant lady, her water broke? What does that mean? It means
that water that was surrounding that baby when it was in her
womb has come out. And so that's the water birth,
that natural birth. And so this is the same contrast
that's given here. There's a spiritual birth, there's
a natural birth. The natural birth is this flesh,
he says, this flesh is this grass and all the glory of man is the
flower of grass. The grass withers, the flower
thereof fadeth away. You ever looked at a field of
wildflowers and you think how beautiful that is? And you come
back two days later and what happened? It's not there anymore. Why? Because the flower fades. It passes away. Everything you
can see with your eyes will one day pass away. Nothing in this
world lasts. And so he says here, Being born
again by the word of God that liveth and abideth forever, for
all flesh is as grass. It doesn't abide forever. The
grass withers, the flower falleth away, but the word of the Lord
endures forever. The word by which we were born
again. The word. Not this. This is gonna be destroyed just
like everything else. See, these books, there's nothing
magical about this book. It's just paper. It's ink. But oh, it's the truth of it.
You see, the truth of this will never change. The word of God
abided forever. It's not gonna be changed. And
this is the word. Same one which by the gospel
is preached unto you. Oh dear brethren, the word is
a living word. In the beginning was the word
and the word was with God and the word was God. Oh what a glorious thing to consider
that he who is the word of God has come into the world to save
sinners. He has accomplished that by the
shedding of His own blood. He has died, He has been buried,
He has risen from the dead, and He has ascended into glory at
the right hand of the Father. Now some people paint a picture
of that as here you got the Father sitting on one throne and you
got Jesus sitting on another throne, a little bit smaller,
but he's over here to the side. He's at the right hand. That's
not it. See, the right hand of God is the power of God. And
Christ is the power of God. The word of God is the power
of God. The gospel's the power of God
unto salvation because it is spoken by the word. The word
of God abideth forever, and this is the word which by the gospel
is preached unto you. God, in his mercy, has so appointed
that the good news the gospel of Jesus Christ might be declared
to the ears of the hearing of the whole world, but unto the
saints of God. It is a precious promise. It is that which by the same
thing, we believe it. See, I believe that this book
contains the word of God. I cannot believe it. I mean,
you can come to me tomorrow and you can have all the proof in
the world. I'll just tell you, I can't help it. I can't help
it. I believe this is the word of
God. How'd I get that way? Only thing I can tell you is
it had to be the Lord, because it couldn't be me. Because I
wouldn't believe it. I didn't want to believe it.
I mean, I look at some things in there and my old flesh says,
what? That don't sound just right. I mean, I don't like that. But oh, the spirit of God teaches
us that whatever the Lord says is right. It is good. And we,
by his word, do believe in him. May the Lord give us an understanding.
That all that we have comes from him. He's worthy of all praise. And that he'd give us a heart
and mind to worship him and to love one another. And that's
really, the law is summed up in those two things, is it not?
Worship God and love your brother. And that is the humility that
we sang about a moment ago that we desire, humility and love.